A group of desperately boring matches thanks to Netherlands', Denmark's and Portugal's anti-football.

Founder of ESAS - Edgar Schiferli, the best associate bowler
A follower of the schools of Machiavelli, Bentham, Locke, Hobbes, Sutcliffe, Bradman, Lindwall, Miller, Hassett and Benaud
Member of JMAS, DMAS, FRAS and RTDAS

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Is a strange world when Germany are the bastion of good football out of these sides.

Have decided (out of hope) that this tournament is going to be a lot more attacking than the World Cup was. It normaly takes a couple of years for international football to catch up and club football been pretty attacking at the top level for a while now.

They had to do that against Spain, tbf and it nearly worked too. Germany were foolish to play open and less physical in the Semi's actually.

They have opened up their style in general more since then too, and comfortably had the best goal difference + most number of goals of all the groups in qualifying IIRC. May not be a traditional dutch team, but certainly not in the Portugal/Denmark category.

They had to do that against Spain, tbf and it nearly worked too. Germany were foolish to play open and less physical in the Semi's actually.

They have opened up their style in general more since then too, and comfortably had the best goal difference + most number of goals of all the groups in qualifying IIRC. May not be a traditional dutch team, but certainly not in the Portugal/Denmark category.

It nearly worked because Howard Webb completely abdicated his responsibilities.

Is a strange world when Germany are the bastion of good football out of these sides.

Have decided (out of hope) that this tournament is going to be a lot more attacking than the World Cup was. It normaly takes a couple of years for international football to catch up and club football been pretty attacking at the top level for a while now.

Hmm, I think the opposite. There's developing a bit of a consensus that the way to win international tournaments is to be functional, with Uruguay taking the Copa America and Zambia taking the ACON. At club level the Mourinho-era blanket defences are struggling to deal with fluid modern attacks but international teams can't develop the kind of understanding that club teams can. Especially since the overwhelming public pressure is usually to pick the best player in each "position" with no real consideration of how they'll combine.

Only really Germany have managed to get past that and get a core group of players playing together for a decent length of time at international level- an English manager could never get away with consistently leaving out Mario Gomez, for instance. Spain have benefited from a lot of their players playing together at club level, but even their attack is so, so much worse than it is on paper. Everyone else just throws their four or five best attacking players at the opposition and hopes for the best. It's so easy for teams to just sit back and pick them off.

Originally Posted by indiaholic

Ireland on the other hand are everything that is good and just and beautiful in this world.